Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the King’s horses and all the King’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

I’ve cracked. Just like an egg, my shell is completely shattered and I’m completely scrambled. And I don’t know if anyone can put me back together again.

What has broken me? Well, my kids, of course. What else?

Last week, pre-blizzard, my husband had to go away for a week for a training session for work. He left on a Friday night and did not return until the following Thursday night. My kids were home for 3 full days because of MLK day, and I thought I was going to go a bit crazy.

Pfft, I had no idea what crazy was at that point.

The blizzard hit us Friday afternoon. My kids were supposed to have a half day, returning home early from school, but because of the pending snow storm, they closed schools for the whole day. The snow started 2 hours after they would have gotten home.

We got a ton of snow. Over 2.5 feet in my area. We were completely snowed in the entire weekend. However, the snow stopped late Saturday night and the plows were out early Sunday morning.

I wasn’t surprised when my kids’ school was closed on Monday. There was still a huge amount of snow on the ground and on the roads. Snow plows were still out plowing and salting, but it was going to take a while to beat back the extreme amount of winter weather that had been dumped on us. The kids were happily playing outside in the snow, having snowball fights, sledding, etc. It was all good.

On Monday afternoon, we were told that schools would be closed again on Tuesday. At this point, the roads were pretty clear, but we figured the school system was just being overly cautious. My husband was working from home, so I at least had a bit of help. The kids were outside again, this time building a snowman, and even went over to a neighbor kid’s house to go sledding for a while. Things were fine.

And then they closed the schools on Wednesday as well. At this point, everyone was pretty much ready for the kids to go back to school, including the kids. And we thought that another day off was a bit much. My boys were tired of the snow and didn’t really want to go outside to play any more. Instead, they opted to stay in and play video games pretty much the entire day. And my husband was away again for a couple of days for work. This was getting ridiculous.

But the ridiculousness was not to end yet. Oh no, because schools were closed yet again on Thursday! The snow had melted at this point down to maybe around six inches, and you could even see grassy patches in some places. The roads were completely clear and safe to drive on. It had been 4 full days since the snow had stopped. We really couldn’t understand why the kids weren’t going to school at this point. And everyone was going stir crazy.

At this point, I had to drag the kids away from the video games, lest their brains begin to atrophy and turn to mush. I demanded reading of books and other non-screen activities. Eventually, I let them watch a movie. And after that, they drifted back to their games. The sheer amount of video games played in my house over the past week cannot be quantified by modern technology.

Can you guess what happened on Friday? Yep, no school. Again. By the time they go back to school on Monday (dear baby jeebus, let them have school on Monday!) they will have been home 13 out of the past 16 days.

I love my kids. I really do. And I love spending time with them. But my current job is taking care of a very active baby and trying to get all the chores done over the course of the day, while chasing him around, saying, “No. No. Stop. Come back here. Don’t touch that. Etc.” I also need to go grocery shopping occasionally, and dragging 3 kids around the store is not a joy, let me tell you. I need my kids to go to school.